Classical Indian Aesthetics and Rasa Theory: Observations on Embodied Religion and Aesthetic Experience

Annette Wilke Classical Indian Aesthetics and rasa Theory: Observations on Embodied Rhetoric, Reader Response, and the Entanglement of Aesthetics and Religion in Hindu India Abstract The chapter investigates the historical effectiveness and the- oretical power of rasa, one of the key terms of Indian aesthetic theory, denoting here “dramatic effect,” “expression,” “aestheticised emotion,” “emotional flavour,” “mood,” and “aesthetic sentiment.” Rasa aesthetics refer to a theory of affect and effect, and as argued in the chapter may also be viewed as “embodied rhetoric.” The continuities and subtle transformations of rasa aesthetics as embodied rhetoric will be discussed from a historical and systematic perspective starting with its inception in the dra- ma theory of the Nāṭyaśāstra, through to Ᾱnandavārdhana’s poetics of sug- gestion, Abhinavagupta’s philosophy of aesthetic immersion, Śārṅgadeva’s musical yoga, Vaiṣṇava devotional rasa-bhāva theology, and finally to everyday speech. Particular emphasis is given to the manifold dovetailing of aesthetics and religion in India, and to two major shifts in perceiving rasa: (a) a shift from production aesthetics to reception aesthetics, reader response, and aesthetic immersion; and (b) (under the influence of the adoption of rasa in devotional religion and theology) from a strict separa- tion of (trans personal) aesthetic mood (rasa) and (personal) real world emotion (bhāva) to understanding rasa itself as real world emotion—for which, previous to rasa aesthetic theory, no separate term existed. 47 ANNETTE WILKE Introduction Drink, o you connoisseurs (rasika) on earth who have a taste for the beautiful [or: who have a poetic taste, a taste for a language full of feeling] (bhāvuka), drink again and again this Bhāgavatam, this store- house [of] aesthetic mood (rasa) (Bhāgavatam 1.1.3b).1 These persuasive words are found in the invocation verse at the very beginning of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (ninth century AD). This great Sanskrit work of emotional Kṛṣņa devotionalism (bhakti) enjoyed exceeding pop- ularity through the centuries. The initial phrase appeals to the reader (i.e. reciter or orator) and the listener to relish the religious text aestheti- cally and to participate in it almost corporally, to “drink its sap” and “enjoy the flavour of the nectar-like stories.”2 Metaphors of food and drink also abound elsewhere in bhakti literature. The “reader response” of the pious is often to “drink,” “eat up,” “devour,” “chew,” and “digest” the sacred text, to “taste the sweetness” of the divine name and immerse themselves in singing and listening to God’s glories. The Bhāgavatam narrating Kṛṣņa’s life on earth became a script for establishing a close relationship to God and for achieving intensity of feeling by perceiving him as a child, master, friend, lover, or even hated enemy. Most of all, the work was supposed to incite a deep and affectionate “love of God” (bhakti). Indeed, the tenth book narrating Kṛṣņa’s “love games” with the gopīs (cowherdesses) inspired an Indian bridal mysticism. The very diction and rhetoric of the source—not forgetting its audi- ble dimension in actual performance—feeds the recipients’ imagination and evokes strong images and emotions. The quote speaks of “aesthetic mood” (rasa), which in the case of religious literature is primarily the sentiment of devotion (bhakti rasa), peace of mind (śānta rasa), and sweetness (mādhurya rasa). However, the aesthetic experience goes beyond noetic content. Very much in consonance with European conceptions of aesthetics—Baumgarten’s sensory cognition and Kant’s synthesising intu- itive knowledge, for example—the rasa refers to pre-reflexive, sensory-affective, non-notional experience triggered by sensory mediation. In the bhakti traditions, and the Hindu context at large, the spoken and sounding word, song, and music are invariably important sensory mediators used to produce aesthetic immersion. We are repeatedly advised to “drink” the 1 Pibata bhāgavataṃ rasa ālayam muhuraho rasikā bhuvi bhāvukāḥ || (Bhāgavatam 1.1.3b). Quoted in James D. Redington, Vallabhācārya on the Love Games of Kṛṣņa (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990), 3. It is the third benedictory verse before the main body of the text starts and also appears in the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Māhātmya the “Glorification of the Bhāgavatam” ascribed to the Padma-Purāņa, 6.10. See C. L. Goswami and M. A. Shastri, ed. and trans., Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahāpurāņa, Sanskrit text and English translation, Part I (Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 2014), 44–45. Similar expressions are found within the Bhāgavatam itself, e.g. 1.1.10. 2 Bhāgavatam, ed. and trans. Goswami and Shastri, 1, see also 2–3, 15, 45, 48. 48 CLASSICAL INDIAN AESTHETICS AND RASA THEORY religious text “with the cups of the ears.”3 Merely hearing it is held to be aus- picious, purifying, and liberating. Thus, rasa is about the reader’s response and also about the text’s own agency and performance—its power to bring auspiciousness and to evoke and channel emotion. Moreover, it is important to note that not only the religious idea behind calls for emotional and aesthetic identification, but also the very standards of literary theory dealing with “worldly,” profane literature demand that truly artistic literature (kāvya) should not only produce meaning but also embody emotion and make it perceptible. Rasa, in the literary discourse is first of all “the linguistic production of an emotion in the text,”4 but this production aesthetics—which was never lost from sight in the actual writ- ing of literature and poetry—shifted its major locus to reception aesthetics and reader’s response around the time the Bhāgavatam was composed. This religious text adopts the literary paradigm; it proudly intrudes into the space of worldly literature and breaks the genre’s boundaries by demand- ing to be enjoyed not only as a Purāṇa (“ancient story” with religious content, mythical lore), but also as a kāvya, artistic literature or poetry.5 Remarkably, and truly outstanding in the sacred lore of Purāṇas, the Bhāgavatam suggests, self-consciously and reflexively, the entanglement and merger of aesthetics and religion. It does not speak of devotees but rather of art lovers or “connoisseurs” (rasika) who, according to Indian aesthetics, must be saḥṛdaya, “of equal heart,” with the artwork. They become its co-producers through deep listening, text participation, and aesthetic response—or, in the diction of the quote, by their “taste for the beautiful” (bhāvuka). Similar to rasika, the term bhāvuka does not relate to the beauty of content or the sublime in a religious sense, although it encompasses the semantic field of auspiciousness, blessing, and happiness. Beauty refers instead to literary beauty and ornamentation (alaṅkāra) (i.e. expressive forms, tropes, figures of sound and sense), which along with rasa belong to the very definition of literature and poetry.6 Thus, “taste for the beautiful” is here synonymous with taste for poetry and literary beauty (alaṅkāra) and for a language full of feeling (rasa). Indeed, the Bhāgavatam is known for its beautiful language and poetic power full of rasa. The original meaning of rasa was “sap (of a plant),” but there are many more lexical meanings in classical Sanskrit: starting with “taste,” above all “a wholesome taste,” and therefore also “essence” both in a technical and metaphorical sense. In addition, rasa connotes “condensate” and 3 This metaphor appears, for instance, in the Hindi Rāmāyaņa of Tulsīdās (six- teenth century), the famous bhakti work of Northern India known and publicly recited and orated as Rāmkatha (“the story of God Rām”). The earlier Bhāgav- atam contains quite similar expressions and oral-aural practices and originated in the South. 4 Sheldon Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out,” in Literary Cul- tures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 47. 5 Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture,” 60, 61. 6 Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture,” 40. 49 ANNETTE WILKE “concentrate,” and can therefore also suggest “drug” or “medicine”; so, rasa can also cover the semantic field and actual literal meaning of “sap, nectar, taste, flavour, essence.” In fact, it became a key term for many aesthetic theories in South Asia. Here it denotes “dramatic effect,” “expression,” and “aestheticised emotion,” referring to “emotional flavour,” “mood,” and “aesthetic sentiment.” This chapter explores the history, the shifting reflexive appraisal, and the oscillating relation to religion of rasa aesthetics, which made its first appearance in theatre studies many centuries before the Bhāgavatam. I want to suggest that rasa aesthetics may be understood as embodied rhetoric and the art of sensuous and emotional persuasion. This sugges- tion will need more elaboration, of course, for I do not mean to suggest that these aesthetic formations are strict equivalents or structurally equal to European rhetoric, but rather to introduce an alternative perspective by looking at how other cultures deal with similar questions and offer new insights through their different focus.7 Instead of intellectual persuasion, it is auratic, emotional and sensory persuasion, feeling and embodiment— including affective body language—that are crucial to this Indian alternative. Notwithstanding historical transformations and a broad spectrum of evaluations, the common thread remains the corporal presence of non-corporal affect associated

Load more